by Liz Mckendrick

Postcards from Tibet are quite a rare find these days so it is not very often that I manage to add a new one to my small collection. Considering Tibet’s history the lack of vintage cards it isn’t really surprising–surrounded on three sides by inhospitable mountain ranges with several of the world’s highest peaks amongst them and at an amazing 4000 metres above sea level Tibet is in one of the most isolated regions of the world.

Tibet was a closed country until the mid 1980’s and as very few foreigners had been allowed to enter the country, myths and legends had built up over many years making it a mysterious place to western eyes and giving rise to many fantastic stories. It was often known as ‘Shangri-La’ and became the setting for the mystical valley in ‘Lost Horizon’ the famous 1933 novel by James Hilton (made into a film in 1937 by Frank Capra). The most well known person to visit Tibet at this time was the German Heinrich Harrar who escaped from a British internment camp in northern India during World War 2 and in 1944, along with Peter Aufschnaiter, managed to walk across the Himalayas to Tibet’s capital Lhasa. They stayed for seven years until the Chinese invaded. Harrar subsequently wrote about the adventure in the bestselling book ‘Seven years in Tibet’.

Tibet’s long history goes back over two thousand tears and despite invasions from several major powers - China invaded for the first time in the 9th century and the Mongols in the 14th century – it has always strived to keep its own identity.

It was not until the 16th century that the Mongol leader Altan Khan first gave the title ‘Dalai Llama’ (or Ocean of Wisdom) to Sonman Gyatson, the leader of the Yellow Hats sect within Tibet. Since then both religious and political responsibilities for the country have been in the hands of the Dalai Llama giving Tibet a very unusual form of government which lasted until the Chinese invasion of the 1950’s.

1904 saw the famous expedition to Tibet by British forces. The soldiers marched from Darjeeling to Lhasa led by Colonel Francis Younghusband to look for evidence of a Russian occupation. They were issued with cameras as part of their kit and the photographs they brought back many enabled many people to see glimpses of the forbidden land for the first time.

The Great Game between Britain and Russia was at its peak around the turn of the last century with the British Government paranoid that Russia had plans to invade and conquer India, the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of the British Empire. Lord Curzon (the then Viceroy of India) was convinced that Russian soldiers had entered Tibet and so ordered Younghusband to lead an expeditionary force into Tibet via Sikkim. However, despite several catastrophic battles and many Tibetan lives lost, and after a two month occupation of Lhasa no trace of the Russians or the Dalai Llama (who had already fled to Mongolia) were found. After signing an Anglo-Tibetan trade agreement with the abbot of Ganden (who the Dali Lama had appointed Regent in his absence) and with the onset of winter the soldiers were forced to retrace their path back to India bringing their photographs with them.

The Postcards

1/ TIBETAN LADY
This lovely portrait photo postcard from the Das Studio shows a Tibetan Lady in her native costume. For most women in Tibet their jewellery is often their personal wealth and also their dowry. Coral is highly valued as Tibet is so far from the sea, so too are amber turquoise and silver. Women from Amdo in north-eastern Tibet wear their hair in 108 braids as this is an auspicious number in Buddhism.

2/ TIBETAN WARRIOR
This warrior, also taken by the Das Studio, shows a typical men’s summer headdress. The hair is plaited with tassels and wound around the head. Both men and women wear earrings and they are normally tied on to the ear with a piece of cord.
The Das Studio was in Commercial Row and Mount Pleasant road in Darjeeling – trade across the Himalayan Mountains with India has always been important for the Tibetans and while they were there many had their photographs taken in studios like this.

3/ TIBETAN MENDICANT
This Tibetan Mendicant, or beggar, is 94 years old according to the caption on the postcard. He is holding a prayer wheel (which contains payers written on paper inside the wheel that fly to heaven as the wheel is spun round) in his right hand. A mendicant takes a vow of poverty – giving up all material possessions to live a life devoted to Buddha.

4/ A TIBETAN FAMILY
Tibetan women generally hold the purse strings within the family and until the Chinese invasion many Tibetan villages practised polyandry. A woman would marry all the sons in one family (as long as none were monks) and the children from these marriages would refer to all the brothers as their father. The practise was aimed mainly at keeping family land together and not splitting it into smaller plots.

Part I of III - To be continued